A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

extremely popular satire against absurd preachers, the History of the famous preacher Fray Gerondif, published under the pseudonym of Don Francisco Lobon de Salazar--a kind of ecclesiastical Don Quixote--so infuriated the preaching monks that the Holy Office received "an almost infinite number of denunciations of the book." Ista, however, was a Jesuit, and escaped, through the influence of his order, with a warning. [1619] Influence, indeed, could achieve almost anything in the Holy Office, whether for culprits or against the uninculpable. In 1796, Don Raymond de Salas, a professor at Salamanca, was actually prosecuted by the Inquisition of Madrid as being suspected of having adopted the principles of Voltaire, Rousseau, and other modern philosophers, he having read their works. The poor man proved that he had done so only in order to refute them, and produced the theses publicly maintained at Salamanca by his pupils as a result of his teachings. The prosecution was a pure work of personal enmity on the part of the Archbishop of Santiago (formerly bishop of Salamanca) and others, and Salas was acquitted, with the statement that he was entitled to reparation. Again and again did his enemies revive the case, despite repeated acquittals, he being all the while in durance, and at length he had to "abjure," and was banished the capital. After a time the matter was forced on the attention of the Government, with the result that even Charles IV was asked by his ministers to ordain that henceforth the Inquisition should not arrest anyone without prior intimation to the king. At this stage, however, the intriguing archbishop successfully intervened, and the ancient machinery for the stifling of thought remained intact for the time. [1620]